Messaging Apps¶
Deploy your AI Analysts to Slack and Microsoft Teams channels so your team can ask questions where they already talk. In Actian AI Analyst, Slack and Teams are grouped as Channels under Connections.
Availability
- Who can do this: members with the Edit capability in the active Workspace can connect a Slack workspace or Teams tenant, deploy an Analyst to a channel, and remove deployments.
- Deployment: Slack or Microsoft Teams must be configured for your deployment. Neither is available on air-gapped self-managed deployments.
How it works¶
- Connect a Slack workspace or a Microsoft Teams tenant: in Studio, open Connections, click + (Add connection), and choose Slack or Microsoft Teams under Channels.
- Deploy an Analyst: open the AI Analyst, click the deployment status button in its header (it reads Not deployed or Deployed), and choose Slack or Teams. Pick a channel and confirm.
- Ask: anyone in that channel can @mention the bot to ask the Analyst a question. The answer arrives as a reply in a thread.
For step-by-step setup, see:
Connections and channel deployments¶
- A connection belongs to the whole organization. A connected Slack workspace or Teams tenant is shared by all its Workspaces. A member with Edit in any Workspace can connect, reconnect or remove it.
- One Analyst per channel. Each channel answers with exactly one Analyst. Channels that already have an Analyst are marked Already deployed in the channel picker.
- The Analyst decides the Workspace. Questions asked in a channel run in the Workspace of the Analyst deployed there, with that Analyst's models, metrics and glossary.
- Channels only. The bot answers @mentions in channels. Direct messages, and personal or group chats in Teams, are not supported.
Who can ask questions in a channel¶
Everyone in the channel gets access
Deploying an Analyst to a channel gives everyone in it, including guests without an AI Analyst account, read access to that Analyst's semantic layer and the data it can query. Before you deploy, make sure the channel's members should see that data.
When someone @mentions the bot, AI Analyst identifies them by their Slack or Teams user:
- Members. If the email on their Slack or Teams profile matches a member of the same AI Analyst organization who has signed in at least once, the question is recorded as theirs.
- Guests. Everyone else, including people with no AI Analyst account and people whose email can't be read, asks as a guest. Emails are never matched across organizations.
If a guest later joins your organization with the same email, their next question in a channel is recorded under their member account. Conversations they had earlier as a guest stay with the guest identity.
What channel users can do¶
Everyone who asks in a channel, member or guest, has Chat level access to the deployed Analyst's Workspace for that question, whatever capabilities they have in AI Analyst. What they can reach is limited to what the deployed Analyst can query.
Channel access is controlled by channel membership. The Analyst's Explorer audience doesn't limit who can ask in a channel. Manage who is in the channel in Slack or Teams.
Where channel conversations appear¶
- Each thread is one conversation, stored like a conversation started in Explorer. A follow-up @mention in the same thread continues it.
- Answers can include an Open in Explorer link, so you can continue the analysis in Explorer.
- If someone asks a follow-up in Explorer on a conversation that started in Slack or Teams, the question (marked via Explorer) and its answer are also posted to the channel thread.
When your organization's trial has ended or it is pending deletion¶
If your organization's trial has ended, or it's being closed, the bot posts a short notice in the thread instead of answering new questions. For example: This organisation's AI Analyst trial has ended, so I can't answer here. An admin can contact Actian to restore access. Stopping an answer that's running and giving feedback still work.
Channel alerts¶
Besides answering questions, a connected Slack workspace or Teams tenant can receive alerts from AI Analyst, such as Steward inbox alerts and data source health alerts. Set them up in Settings → Administration → Notifications.
Audit¶
Connecting a Slack workspace or Teams tenant, deploying an Analyst to a channel, removing a deployment, and removing a connection are recorded in the audit log.